-Crawl- YASD: The Evils of the RNG

So, as a low level DECj on D:2, and I was in a twist. I had eaten a
gnoll to keep from starvation, and gotten really sick from the chunks
that didn't give satiation. And I was missing some hit points. And there
were unknown dangers around the corner and I was still "Hungry". So I
decided to test out some potions. I had picked up four of them. Potion
of slowing. Yay. Potion of rage. Hurrah! Free healing. I should have
stopped there, but I kept going. The next potion was one I have never
before encountered, or at any rate quaffed, as far as I can remember. It
started rotting me. The final potion was *not* a potion of healing. My
poor DECj ended his life running from a snake while waiting for
teleportation to kick in, the two rounds of being next to the snake
while it had time to strike (once for reading scroll of teleport, once
for its extra action) enough to wittle down my remaining 4 hit points.
--
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Elethiomel wrote:
> So, as a low level DECj on D:2, and I was in a twist. I had eaten a
> gnoll to keep from starvation, and gotten really sick from the chunks
> that didn't give satiation. And I was missing some hit points. And there
> were unknown dangers around the corner and I was still "Hungry". So I
> decided to test out some potions. I had picked up four of them. Potion
> of slowing. Yay. Potion of rage. Hurrah! Free healing.

Note that a Potion of Rage induces berserk status, and saps your food
satiation by 1000 points like any other berserk effect.

> I should have
> stopped there, but I kept going. The next potion was one I have never
> before encountered, or at any rate quaffed, as far as I can remember. It
> started rotting me. The final potion was *not* a potion of healing.

You just encountered one of the rarest potions in the game - the Potion
of Decay. Ordinarily, the only time you'll encounter these with any
regularity is if you start killing mummies in mass quantities (i.e.
you've entered the Tomb), since one of their death-curse effects is to
turn one stack of non-Decay potions into Potions of Decay.

The other super-rare potions are Water, Magic, and Experience. In
fact, I don't know if potions of Water can even spawn normally - it's
very possible that they're only obtainable via use of Fulsome
Distillation. I know I've never encountered a naturally occurring
potion of water (though I've seen Magic, Experience, and Decay before),
and I'm not up to source-diving to find out.

> My poor DECj ended his life running from a snake while waiting for
> teleportation to kick in, the two rounds of being next to the snake
> while it had time to strike (once for reading scroll of teleport, once
> for its extra action) enough to wittle down my remaining 4 hit points.

At least it was on D2 - not much effort lost.

Jim